How I Work: Benny Waelput, Copywriter at Teamleader

Teamleader, a Belgian software company, mixes CRM, project management and invoicing to help companies manage their data in the cloud, and says to always be prepared. Benny Waelput, their Copywriter, gives us the keys to King’s Landing, one of their meeting rooms, and attests to the company’s love of Game of Thrones.

What is the number one advice you could give us when it comes to organizing effective meetings?
Always be prepared! Set up an agenda before you start the meeting, so that everyone knows what they can expect and prepare accordingly. This way there’s no confusion about what the main goals for the meeting are and it helps speed up the meeting.

What is the coolest meeting room you have at your company?
Apart from our sunny terrace, which everyone absolutely adores, I’d have to say our “Madrid” meeting room. Despite some people jokingly calling it the “smokers lounge,” I love its untraditional setup: No chairs or tables, just a bench in a non-linear shape.

Scheduling a meeting in Madrid has never been easier with Joan.

What is the best advice you’ve ever received on organizing meetings?
Let everyone have a say. You’ll always have people shouting louder than others, trying to push through their opinion. But it’s often those who say the least that have the clearest ideas.

What is the craziest meeting you’ve ever had at your company?
That would have to have been our yearly Strategy Fold Up. Once a year, everyone comes to our headquarters in Ghent and we spend a full day with the whole team talking strategy for the new year. I know it sounds tedious, but it’s actually really fun. We don’t always take ourselves too seriously. And of course there’s always the legendary after party. Work hard, play hard, right?

Where do you prefer to hold your meetings at your company?
Outside, whenever possible. There’s nothing like some fresh air. Too bad we live in Belgium and the weather is quite unpredictable …

Teamleader in a meeting indoors hard at work. (It must be raining outside.)

How do you go about naming the meeting rooms in your company and why?
All of our meeting rooms are named after the cities we actually have offices in. For example, we have Ghent, Berlin, Amsterdam and Madrid. Each of those are also decorated with elements associated with those cities or countries, like the famous skyline of Ghent with its three towers or the canals of Amsterdam.

If you were to design and name any meeting or conference room, how would it look like and how would you name it?
If it were up to me, I would name and decorate all of our meeting rooms after Game of Thrones locations or houses. We decided to name our meeting rooms after cities we had offices in, so 4 of the 5 meeting rooms were named after them. And we had to pick something original for the last meeting room, the fifth one, and that one became King’s Landing. Since the team is full of Game of Thrones fans, the choice was easily made. Luckily, no beheadings have taken place in there (so far).

Meeting at King’s Landing anyone?

If you were to hire an office assistant, what should their personality traits be?
He or she definitely needs to be organized — a trait that I’m lacking a little. :) I would need someone that continually challenges me to become more structured.

How has Joan changed your meetings?
It finally fixed the problem of double bookings! No more looking for a meeting room or being surprised to find someone else there. And thanks to the integration we built with Google Resources and Teamleader, we can just book a meeting room straight from our CRM and planning tool. Since we’re constantly expanding, we’ll probably be getting some more Joans once our new floor is finished.

Follow the rest of the ‘How I Work’ series here.